bully
by glitter and razzmatazz
Summary: his voice cuts like a razor. "I'm allowed to be bitter" —TahnoKorra, post-"And the Winner Is..."


**a/n: **everything is korra and nothing hurts. also, tahno has the most crazy-ass faces and they are wonderful.

**disclaimer: **don't own.

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**[**_bully_**]**

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"No! I'll do anything! Just please don't take my bending!"

Amon rests his thumb on the middle of the boy's skull and drives right through to his soul. He watches Tahno's pupils dilate in fear—the bully finally falling at last. It had to be done for the good of the world.

When the deed is done, he raises his hands to the cheers of the Equalists in the stadium, to the flashes of a hundred electric lights here and there throughout the stands, and he casts aside Tahno's useless body and the other useless bodies of his teammates.

Maybe they'll see the errors of benders and their ways and come crawling to him.

Maybe.

.

"_Republic City is at war."_

.

Korra can see Tahno's body floating from her place in the bleachers. He resembles a dead fish in a way, belly-up, mouth wide open. She purses her lips.

Lin, apparently glancing at the same sorry sight, sighs. "As big of an asshole he was through and through, no one deserves that."

Korra swallows hard and nods.

"You're the Avatar. I know you don't like him, but you need to say something," she adds.

"I don't think he wants to hear anything from the likes of me," Korra argues. "I know I wouldn't want to be anywhere but alone. Or maybe dead. Or will a big tub of ice cream or something."

Lin glares at her humorlessly. "Just go."

"Will you teach me how to metalbend someday?"

"No. Now go."

.

Mako and Bolin both hug her fiercely when she returns to them, just happy to see her alive and not electrocuted to death by the slimy Lieutenant. Even Asami joins in, running over with a click-click-click-clack of impractical heels that Korra can only cringe at.

"I'm so glad you're all okay," she murmurs.

"Gods, I thought I was going to die out there!" Bolin exclaims, gesticulating wildly, sending Pabu flying from shoulder to shoulder and back again. "Amon just showed up out of nowhere and his voice went crackling all about the place and then his creepy mustache friend who got me last time just shocked the bejesus out of us. I really, really thought we were going to die." He grimaces. "But I'm really, really, really, _really_ times infinity glad we didn't."

"Yep," Mako agrees. "That just about sums it up."

"Dad and I hid in the booth," Asami says, wide-eyed. "It was terrifying. But it was locked up. No one could get in, thankfully. We just had to sit and watch the whole thing go down. I wish…" she breathes, "I wish I could have done something."

"There's nothing left to do," Korra emphasizes, "but heal."

.

The Fire Ferrets have no more than a few scratches here and there—and are a little on edge from the electrocution—but otherwise, they're perfectly fine. It's nothing that Korra can't heal anyway. Still, all three are coerced into the stadium's infirmary with the Wolfbats and several audience members with heart murmurs and burns.

Korra sits in a cheap, plastic chair picking at a loose thread on her uniform. Bolin sits to her right, speaking softly to Pabu (and Korra would find it cuter was she not in panic-mode). Mako and Asami are intertwined together behind them, but Korra doesn't dare look behind her because she doesn't think she could take it at this hour of this day. One more blow and she might be down for the count for good.

Across the sterile, white room (and the whites are actually white and not some murky, dusty color), Tahno and his teammates are receiving attention. If Tahno wasn't wearing his uniform, Korra notes, she wouldn't have recognized him.

His normally well-groomed hair is wet and sticks to his forehead unattractively. He looks smaller, thinner, sicker. Where he used to appear on top of the world, now he is swamped by it, taken in by a rip-tide and thrown through quite a loop.

All of this change, all of this in the span of an hour, Korra thinks. Bereft of all fighting spirit, invigoration, youth, the will to live.

He looks like he's dead.

.

"Tahno?"

She is ignored.

"Tahno?"

Again.

"_Tahno_?"

And again.

"I'm so sorry."

"Don't talk to me."

"Look, I know it isn't easy but—"

Interrupted.

"You are the Avatar. You're supposed to protect this city, little girl. Maybe that's all you are. A little girl. You have no idea what you're doing. You're scared shitless. All of us are, yeah. But you're supposed to be better. You're supposed to fucking save us from this maniac. You haven't saved anyone. He may as well take yours away too for all the good you're doing—"

Interrupted.

"Tahno, I—"

"I told you. _Don't_ talk to me."

.

That night is all ugly nightmares. And she's not just sleep deprived—she's becoming sleep _depraved _because all she can think of is all the times Amon wielded his thumb—such a harmless little appendage, so absurd—and took away everything and left the world to burn. Fire Bolt Zolt was the first—and yes, maybe he had it coming, but Tahno was little more than a simple, arrogant teenager. He cheated, sure, but mistakes are mistakes and no one deserves cruel and unusual punishment, a lifelong curse such as this one.

Worse yet, Korra can't shake the thought of switching around and taking his place. She keeps Naga up all night with her thrashing back and forth, the disturbance in the sheets like a hurricane forming in the ocean. Naga can't help but howl once or twice and in turn, keep everyone on Air Temple Island (save for Meelo, the deepest sleeper in existence) awake.

Not that anyone would sleep anyway. Not with war and explosions and death and sacrifice all on the horizon.

.

She decides to give Tahno a second ring a few weeks later, because she knows it's her fault for persuading the council and she doesn't want any more hate dividing the benders when war has been declared and the first offensive has been launched. So she goes poking around the neighborhoods and one of his fangirls grudgingly divulges that he's wasting away in a local noodle joint.

She enters and finds him staring down at his noodles. He hasn't touched them and they're already cold. His hood is drawn over his head. His hair is nowhere in sight, pulled back away from his face, like he didn't want to recognized and nothing could bring him pride anymore.

If Korra thought he looked dead before—well, she never saw this coming.

He doesn't have to look in her direction to know she's there.

"What the hell do you want?"

"To apologize."

"Right. Let's write it up into tomorrow's paper, eh? 'Young Avatar apologizes to disgraced Pro-bending champion.' And the public goes nuts. Look at those cameras flash!"

He lifts his head and glares at her so sharply that she can feel it in her bones and it hurts.

"It isn't a stupid public stunt. That's Tarrlok's thing, not mine. I have nothing to do with that. I won't ever."

"Well, gee. All those reporters will be out of jobs. What a shame."

His voice cuts like a razor.

"Tahno. Listen—"

"Just like me. Out of a job. May as well let Amon take away their right to free speech, too. I wonder if each of his fingers takes away something different—"

"I just wanted to let you know—"

"Like, his pinky takes away memories. And his middle finger takes away your ability to cook. And his index finger takes away—"

"Oh, will you just _shut up. _If you hadn't noticed, there's a war going on here and if you want to do _something_ with your energy instead of complaining about being the victim, maybe we'll be closer to winning!"

Immediately, guilt crawls into her stomach and she averts her eyes.

"I'm allowed to be bitter."

Korra nods glumly. "I'm sorry."

"I want to fight—no. I want to _kill _Equalists, Korra."

"You do?"

"I'm not going to just roll over and die. I'm gonna have my revenge. Someday."

"Even without—um, yeah—you know, your bending?"

"I think I can punch pretty damn hard."

"I'm sure you can, pretty boy."

.

When the front lines form, Tahno's in them, in armor and swords and fancy new hair gel. And his world becomes the ebb and flow of hand-to-hand combat—some concessions and some gains, chipping away at their defenses bit by bit until he finally reaches the other side and works backwards. Officers tells him he has quite some talent for a non-bender and he fails to admit that, yes, he actually is a bender, but that was a long time ago, practically another life when he was poisoned by arrogance.

He has a personal investment in the war effort.

So when he watches Korra dodge buildings, her eyes aglow with Avatar powers he would never understand, he feels a surge of pride gush back into him.

"Make him fucking pay, little girl," he mutters, too low to hear under the rush of elements from Korra's hands and through the alley ways of the city and the bombs that burst and the chi-blockers who go rustling through the crowds of people.

And when she does (and she returns with his mask as proof), he thinks, maybe, just maybe, things aren't so bad.

An eye for an eye. A life for a life. And a bully gets what's coming.

He can live with that world order.


End file.
